My first impression of it, and maybe yours, was that it’s another to-do list app.

But it’s not. Not really.

I bring into each morning a list of activities I want to do every day. Not instinctive activities like eating, sleeping. I’m talking about intentional activities that I choose to do. I don’t like to include them in my task management app, because they feel like clutter there. These are activities I’m aware every day that I want to accomplish, and don’t need a reminder.

But sometimes I need the motivation. Daily Deeds, at least in the few days I’ve used it, offers the satisfaction of a check box and review of how I’ve done.

But Here’s the Real Point

What all this has really helped me see is the (very healthy) distinction between projects vs. rhythms. Projects are the kinds of things I maintain in my task list. As GTD’ers understand them, they are collections of tasks that can be checked off, and be done with.

Rhythms, on the other hand, are practices. They are actions to be repeated, over and over. Ideally, they lead to a healthier me, and make me better at creative work. Not to meantion a better husband, better dad, better friend.

But where it gets ugly for me, and maybe for you, is the seeming mandate of the projects and their tasks. Too often I set aside today’s rhythms as I convince myself that the urgency of the projects demands priority. The rhythms will be there tomorrow, after all. But when I do this, I notice the difference, and my projects suffer too.

Projects are all about doing.
   Rhythms are all about being.

Projects need to be managed.
   Rhythms need to be sustained.

Projects (hopefully) feed my stomach.
   Rhythms feed my soul.

So while I’ve only used Daily Deeds for a few days, I think it’s found a permanent home on my iPhone, right next to OmniFocus. You can see a few of the rhythms I’ve added on there. What activities are important for your daily rhythms?

Sometimes ideas are pressing on my finger tips, demanding that I allow them to burst out into written words.

Usually not.

Most of the time, ideas form inside, where I guard them until I think they are ready…until I think they are good enough to share with others. Who, of course, wants to be represented by half-baked thoughts? But few, if any, of my thoughts seem to really be worked out until they are engaged. It is the process of writing them out that allows them to mature, to take shape.

For those times when the ideas aren’t bursting out, I’ve developed a workflow, and a context, for writing. Speaking of half-baked…that’s what this workflow is. It’s an image of how I want it to work. Sometimes it does. Often not. But here’s what it should look like:

The Incubator

Ideas begin in the incubator. These are little captures here and there that need to take a little more shape. Sometimes, they need to mix it up with another thought in the incubator and see some magic happen.

This used to be the main — well, the only — step in my process for developing ideas. The problem was, I didn’t review it enough. I didn’t give the ideas space to take shape. I ended up with an incubator full of moldy concepts. It was clear I needed a way to acknowledge those ideas that were a little more fully developed. So, I implemented…

The Context

I created a context in OmniFocus just for writing. Ideas that feel like they are ready to take shape are moved into this context — with a few notes, if needed. At first, I thought it would be redundant to have a place for material to take shape in Yojimbo and OmniFocus. But the writing context let’s me see which ideas have energy behind them to develop more.

It’s not perfect, and even my writing context sees some build up of ideas that once had momentum. But now they just seem like…bad ideas. To help make sure I get some of them written, it takes…

The Friction

Someone far more noble than I might have the gumption to just sit down and write. Good for them.

I need a kick in the pants most of the time. Sometimes I need to block out time that I commit to writing. (Merlin Mann’s new direction for 43Folders has been brilliant in helping me see this.) And when I’ve created the time, the writing context gives focus on how to use it.

Of course, it also helps to make promises about what I’m going to write. For me, it’s almost always been good to have external deadlines. But when a syllabus or editor isn’t demanding something, then it’s helpful to create the tension to get the writing done.

This is part of a series on Contexts where I explore some of the unique contexts I’ve been working with in my GTD system.

While David Allen’s Getting Things Done has shaped a lot of my workflow, my efforts at implementing a weekly review have been half-hearted. For more than a year, I’ve scheduled an appointment with myself every Monday morning for a weekly review. This is meant guarantee that I would have some time as my week began to collect my thoughts, update my task list, and look at the week ahead. Sometimes it has been just that…but often not.

Up until a few weeks ago, I had never made the concept of a weekly review my own, in spite of it’s presence in my calendar. I am pretty good about doing a daily review of my task list — bumping items up and down in priority…and even marking some of them complete. (It seems like more tasks get shuffled than completed sometimes. I’m sure you can’t relate though.) So while I often feel like I have a handle on my task list, I have been missing some of the larger questions and tasks that come with a weekly review.

As I’ve been revisiting my contexts, it occurred to me to create a Weekly Review context. So, when Monday morning rolls along, I can open this context and work through the tasks. I have them all set to recur with a new start date the following week once I complete them. Working through this list helps me tie up loose ends and have everything in a ready stance for the week to come. Here are some of the tasks I complete each week:

• Review Current Documents: Remove the “current” tag from any documents I no longer need readily available. (Related post: a folder for the trendy kids)
• Review Current Projects: A quick glance at what projects I have in OmniFocus…especially helps me to remember to mark complete the projects I finished the week prior.
• Prioritize Projects and Tasks for this Week: I like to assign tasks to certain days using start and due dates so I’m not overwhelmed everytime I look my list. I usually am anyway.
• Tag Documents in Leap: I primarily use tags rather than folders to organize documents using Leap. Tagging recently created documents assures that they can be easily found later. (Related post: spring cleaning the documents folder)
• Tag items in Yojimbo: I probably toss 15-20 notes and ideas into Yojimbo every week. Much like my documents, making sure they are tagged helps me sort them and find them later. (Related post: capture everything: the incubator

I find that I spend about 45-60 minutes working through this list, but it is time well spent. It gives me a fresh start to the week, and a sense of a clear mind and a clean computer to tackle what I’m facing.

If you do a weekly review, what does yours look like? I’m sure there are a few other items to add that could be helpful for me.

In particular, I’ve been revisiting the contexts that I use in OmniFocus. For the most part, my primary contexts have been in place since I first read David Allen’s Getting Things Done: calls, errands, mac, home, office, and tinkering (which I’ve already written about).

My mac context gets crowded since it tends to become the default, and so much of what I do happens while sitting in front of my computer. I also tend to ignore the other contexts unless I have a red due date notifier nagging me. This is exactly something I want to move away from, as I don’t want to be driven by due dates.

While I haven’t solved all of this, I have been working on putting a few new contexts in place, and I’ll share some of them here in the new few weeks. Consider this an intro to a series on contexts — never mind the fact that one post in this series was written almost a year ago.

Until then, I’d like to hear from you:

• What contexts do you use?
• What unique contexts have you put in place the are helpful for you?

Let me be candid…this is not a side by side comparison of the two products. I have dabbled a bit with Things but only have fleeting impressions of it. I have been wrapped around OmniFocus‘ finger since the beta. Before that I was using Kinkless GTD in OmniOutliner, the forerunner and inspiration for OmniFocus. So at best, I can offer you the reasons why Things hasn’t been able to pry me away from OmniFocus. And, these are the reasons I encourage you to give OmniFocus a long hard look too:

User Interface

No doubt, Things is pretty, and OmniFocus is, well, structured. When I first saw Things, I thought a lot of screen space was lost to eye candy. I know some of the layout can be collapsed down, but I still appreciate the function of the simple columns and indentations of tasks in OmniFocus. And while I don’t use them very much, the Perspectives in OmniFocus offer a lot of flexibility to, um, focus.

Quicksilver

I could not consider a GTD app that doesn’t have Quicksilver support available. When a task comes to mind, I want to shuffle it away (and into my inbox) with minimal effort and distraction. At least 5 times a day, I activate Quicksilver and fire a task into my inbox while reading, sitting in a meeting or working on another project. (You can read more about how I set this up here.) OmniFocus‘ quick entry feature is convenient, but Quicksilver is still more streamlined. As far as I know, Things does not have Quicksilver integration yet.

Power Use

I’m still learning features of OmniFocus after over a year of use. If you use, or are considering OmniFocus, take a look at Don McAlister’s (of ScreencastsOnline.com) two screencasts on OmniFocus — part one: basics and part two: advanced. I’ve learned even more features from these screencasts, some I have implemented and others I have not, but, I know the app still has plenty of room to grow with me.

OmniGroup

I have 2-3 other OmniGroup apps and they make great stuff. I should disclose that I romanticize them a bit since their offices used to be right next to my favorite coffee shop in Seattle (and why they would move away from that java goodness…I have no idea). From my own experience, they are very responsive to customers via Twitter, email and in their support forums.

One Gripe

If I have one gripe, it is the OmniFocus iPhone app. It has great features, and I use it often, but not as much as I might. It is slow to load, and sync via mobileme is a slow process. I still don’t use OmniFocus for capturing tasks because of this (see my quicker solution). My wife syncs her iphone with OmniFocus via bonjour and it is a lot faster, but I don’t want to be limited to syncing over a local network.

I have several friends who love Things, and I don’t think it’s a mistake to go that route. Especially if cash is a deciding factor — Things (both Mac and iPhone versions) is half the price. But OmniFocus is the way to go for me…it has a learning curve at the beginning, but once you push through that, it is an app that will grow with you…and on you.

But I’d love to hear feedback from others too. My opinion is not the only one? Got other reasons to go with OmniFocus? Care to make a case for Things? Leave a comment below…

From Amazon’s product description:

David Allen’s Getting Things Done hit a nerve and ignited a movement with businesses, students, soccer moms, and techies all the way from Silicon Valley to Europe and Asia. Now, David Allen leads the world on a new path to achieve focus, control, and perspective. Throw out everything you know about productivity– Making It All Work will make life and work a game you can win. For those who have already experienced the clarity of mind from reading Getting Things Done, Making It All Work will take the process to the next level.

I have to admit I am a little skeptical. What I appreciated about Getting Things Done was the simple, practical approach it offered to productivity. It didn’t read like a self-help book. The description above sounds a little self-helpish and that makes me wary. Nevertheless, I’ll likely purchase this book and share my thoughts about it here, but not until Amazon gets the Kindle version down to the standard $9.99 price.

The bad news is that such a post felt like hypocrisy, because I can’t seem to get there. As much as I would like to feel that caught up, my list of available tasks is usually in the dozens when all the contexts are added up. I still need the prod that a due date offers to help me prioritize critical tasks.

The good news is that MacSparky published a great post yesterday called OmniFocus Tips – The Omniscient Start Date. This is a great example of why David is one of my favorite Mac bloggers. Please go read it, whether you use OmniFocus or something else. And if you don’t use OmniFocus, I would recommend using something that has the capability to assign a start date to a task so you can put his ideas to work. Why clutter your brain with things you don’t need to, or can’t, do yet?

The second is more elusive, but I’ll call it creative mode. In one of the most helpful take-away’s from The Now Habit, Neil Fiore describes this mode:

For you to work creatively, and very rapidly, the critical and logical functions of our brain (generally attributed to the left hemisphere) must be temporarily suspended to allow the creative functions (generally attributed to the right hemisphere) to start the flow of ideas and inspiration that you need.

Reading Fiore’s thoughts helped me to clarify the uniqueness of these two different modes. Both are based on output. But the state of mind for each, and the results, are very different. GTD mode is valuable, but it’s primary purpose is to make the space to be in creative mode. GTD mode tends to be outward focused, and as Fiore describes, it is left-brained. It looks at what expectations are weighing on me and meets them.

Creative mode is inward focused. It is a matter of being in tune with my soul to let my natural creative processes emerge. In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron describes it this way:

All too often, when we say we want to be creative, we mean that we want to be able to be productive. Now, to be creative is to be productive — but by cooperating with the creative process, not forcing it.

Fiore uses a different term to describe creative mode; he calls it the flow state. This captures what Cameron describes above. It is about connecting with the right side of the brain, with my own creativity, rather than forcing it out. The latter section of The Now Habit describes how to engage with the flow state. It begins with a two minute process called focusing “for shifting rapidly to the flow state by replacing guilt and stress with a stress-free focus on the present.”

Fiore gives several helpful exercises. They alone make the book worthwhile, but I find that just the awareness of the flow state has been helpful for me. Designating times for GTD vs creating is important and I make time for both. But the latter is not just an appointment to make in my calendar. It comes when I take the time to slow down, to quiet the external demands, and to listen to my soul.

I’ve thought about doing a bigger overview of OmniFocus. But, there plenty out there that are worthwhile, which I was reminded of as MacApper posted on this morning. So, for the OmniFocus inhibited, I offer links to some OmniFocus walkthrough that will be worth your time:

• MacApper – OmniFocus: GTD-based Productivity – Just posted this morning
• MacSparky – Review: OmniFocus – I always enjoy MacSparky’s take on things
• OmniGroup – OmniFocus Product Page – OmniGroup has a few videos that are worth watching.

Above all, I would say the best way to learn it is to start using it. It will help if you are familiar with GTD; 43Folders’ Getting Started with “Getting Things Done”, as the title suggests, is a good place to start.

For newer readers of Creativityist, here are a few posts from the archive that describe some of my workflows with OmniFocus:

• Capture Everything: Tasks
• Capture Everything: Out and About
• The Tinkering Context

• Everything on your list should be a single task that can be completed and checked off. This can be hard to do sometimes, but break the larger projects down into single tasks. Don’t put down “Buy gas for mower and cut grass”. Separate it into two tasks.
• Don’t put broad general items on your to-do list. If something can’t be “completed” then it isn’t a to-do…it’s a project. If you think of something that is going to take several steps, than create a task to make a project out of it. In other words, create a task to break it down into doable steps.
• Write your tasks as if someone else was going to be completing them. This will help you write them with enough clarity and information that you can remember what you are actually supposed to do when you read them days or weeks later. (I found this tip a few months ago on another blog, but I can’t remember where. If it was you, please let me know so I can give you credit.)
• Store information along with where you will need it. If you get an email with directions to an appointment, cut and paste that info in the notes section on your calendar. If you get an email with instructions on something you need to do, paste it in the notes in your task program. (OmniFocus’ capture tools make this easy…iCal, not so much.)
• Use start dates on tasks so you don’t have to see them until they are relevant. I have a utopian dream of not using due dates at all, but only start dates…but that’s for another post.
• Don’t let anything go overdue! Sometimes you don’t get things done by the due date you assigned yourself, but change the due dates to current dates. Don’t fill your task list with a bunch of red overdue items or your due dates won’t be meaningful anymore.
• Follow the two minute rule. if you run across something that can be done in two minutes or less, do it. Get it done and get it out of your mind. Don’t clutter up your list, or your mind with it. One of the greatest enemies of productivity is how often we have to revisit things because we didn’t take care of them the first time.